Belated Spring Cleaning

Nobody visits our place during CNY, so there isn't a crucial need to spring clean before CNY. I had intended to make use of the off days that I had after CNY. Though I was very much lured by the K drama, I did a good job staying focus.

I love to throw things away so that I can make space for new things. Many times when I cant find things, I wondered if I had accidentally threw them away. Other times I regretted throwing some stuff away when I realised that I needed them subsequently. Nevertheless, I still enjoy throwing things and getting rid of the clutter. Shiok ah!

Every few months, I would clear out the kids' play area, throwing away toys, especially the cheap ones that spoil easily or those that the kids have outgrown. There are less and less to throw now bcos we have been buying less and less toys. The kids are growing up! On rare occasions, I would also clear the shelves in the storeroom, focusing on the middle and lower shelves bcos the stuff on the top shelf are the bulky stuff that we rarely used and touch.

On Wednesday, I cleared out the soft toys that cluttered the master bedroom wardrobe top shelf. We threw 3 bags into the recycle bin. I also cleared out the drawers in the master bedroom. I felt minor achievements.

Yday, I worked on the boxes and shelf in Pope's room (but our stuff). I came up with another few plastic bags of stuff to throw. The important documents were finally properly filed. Steady lah.

Today is the best. I started with the kids' play corner and then moved on to the storeroom. It had been a while. I threw away so many things. You know how one will start to accumulate and keep things bcos it is so wasted to throw them away even if you don't need or use them for one year, 2, 3, 4 and counting years. I threw out so much car stuff that Daddy Lim had kept in the storeroom for years! I found a coffee maker and xbox that ah yee brought over when she came to live with us. That is like more than 6 years ago??!!!

I gathered more than 15 big bags of stuff. The tied back were for the rubbish or recycled bins. The unpacked stuff were from the top shelf. The plastic bags were from unwrapping all the stuff that Popo had kept in plastic bags. She has this crazy habit to wrap everything in plastic bag (sometimes 2 layers!!) before storing them in the storeroom. Haiz.

I am guilty of cluttering the storeroom too. Look what I found tucked in one corner of the top shelf! These are at least 8 years old! Of course I don't remember keeping them in the storeroom. Haha.

The storeroom is now super clean and quite empty actually. Haha. I was a little disappointed. I was hoping to find treasure (maybe gold bars?!) but no such luck. Lol.

Huat ah!

Mummy Lim

CNY 2016

This CNY didn't feel too CNY. I shouldn't complain bcos I opted to spend CNY out of Singapore. We didn't get new clothes since we didn't go visitation. We missed the big reunion dinner at Daddy Lim's auntie's house. There isn't CNY goodies bcos nobody is coming to visit us. Most importantly, I only got to eat steamboat 1 time. Sob. I like to eat steamboat.

Chu yi was spent traveling back from Port Dickson. We left shortly after bfast and were on the road for 4 hours. Popo was out and we had Maggie mee for dinner bcos we were too lazy. Haha, what a way to start the CNY.

We went to the zoo with ah yee and ah tioh C on chu er. We could feel that it was a PH bcos the zoo was super crowded. I wonder if I was there to look at the animals or the people. Hahaha.

Lil Isaac didn't have school on chu san. Daddy Lim was on leave and I didn't have to work until next Monday. We brought the kids to USS, trying to burn some hours away. USS was freaking crowded. Shouldn't people be back at work?

We were in USS for about 3 hours and took only 4 rides bcos the Qs were all freaking long and everybody seems to have the express passes. The kids were grumbly that mummy refused to q for most of the rides but it was a nice visit overall.

I do regret when I see posting their family pictures on fb in new clothes. Haiya, should have bought new clothes. Haha. We also took family pictures but heads only. Happy CNY from the Lim family!

Mummy Lim

Ah Yee and Ah Tioh Cyril are Back!

Ah yee and ah tioh C are finally back! I had the opportunity to see and catch up with ah yee last September when I was in Geneva. The kids had not seen them since last CNY and missed them loads. They had been looking forward to seeing them again.

Ah yee and ah tioh C arrived on Saturday, when we were in Port Dickson. We came home on Monday afternoon and they were out. Ah yee messaged to say that they would be home after dinner. The kids, especially Lil Isaac, kept asking if they were coming home.

We finally saw them in the night and the kids were very excited. Suddenly, Lil Shauna was demonstrating her jumps and Lil Isaac started showing off his TKD. The kids were fighting to talk to ah yee and ah tioh C. It didn't matter what was the conversation, they simply wanted to talk. We had to chase the kids off to bed so that they had energy for the zoo the next day.

On Tuesday, we played tourists and accompanied ah tioh C to the zoo. The weather couldn't be better. It was cloudy and cool; perfect for outdoor trips. We had Mac bfast before that. Ah yee was craving so much for it.

The kids weren't too interested to take pictures. So we took pictures ourselves.

We left the zoo in the afternoon and headed to JP for dinner. The kids were requested to take pictures. Lil Shauna was camera ready. The boy had to be forced and zzzzz.

The kids must be tired after all the afternoon fun, right? They still asked to play Kinnect. Lil Shauna had to go to bed at 9pm for school the next day and ah tioh C was forced to play kinnect with Lil Isaac. Lol. Luckily Lil Isaac agreed to play easy games with ah tioh C without needing to jump or move too much.

The kids would be sleeping with us while we hosted ah yee and ah tioh C. It isn't too bad given that they are now in Thailand for the next week and we have the room back until they are back from their holiday. The kids are again asking every so frequently when they will be back. Lol.

Mummy Lim

Port Dickson Day 3

Lil Shauna had been warned not to wake up too early. Haha. She said that she would try her very best and woke up at 8am. Yeah! We all had a good night rest and of course bfast followed.

While walking to the restaurant, we saw so many female peacocks at the tennis court.

Then we spotted the male peacock and saw it spread its tail! We eagerly went to the male peacock, hoping to take a good picture. It was really magnificent. The kids had to follow it around to take a picture with the peacock.

Bfast was the same spread but still good. We intended to go to the petting zoo but spotted the stairways to the old Fairway hotel and decided to take an adventure. Part of the stairs were missing and we had to climb on dirt with the help of a thin rope. It wasn't tough but had to be fast or become the mosquitoes' feast. I was there spraying the insect repellent like crazy while climbing the stairs.

We saw the old hotel.

It didn't look that old actually. We took a little tour inside and it appeared to have been torn down quite recently.

Lil Shauna was super scare. She said that she was scared of ghost. We only saw plenty of dog poo. We didn't spend too much time bcos we had a scare girl and a boy who stupidly jumped off some steps and fell. Luckily he wasn't hurt when there were broken glasses and light bulbs everywhere. But I wouldn't be surprised if he had landed on some poo. Zzzz.

We had to skip the petting zoo and headed back to the room to give the boy a good scrub. We decided to head home thereafter, hoping that we would avoid jams at the custom.

The journey home was definitely much better. There was no expressway jam. We stopped along the way for lunch and petrol. The custom jam wasn't too bad and we made it home in about 4 hours.

Overall the trip was alright. I would have loved it if it had been much longer. Bcos it was such a short trip, we didn't plan any itinerary or tried to venture too far out of the resort. The kids love Avillion though. Well, they love any holidays that come with plenty of swimming and ice cream and this holiday had both. Haha.

Mummy Lim

Port Dickson Day 2

Bcos somebody slept at 8pm, that somebody woke up before the sky turns bright and said that she can no longer sleep. She tossed and turned and finally was allowed off the bed and to the balcony. It was a nice way to start the morning with some books, watching the sky lit up. Coupled with the nice morning breeze, it would have been perfect except for some black flying creatures that kept zooming past us, in and out of our balcony. We suspected that they were some fast flying birds but they could he bats too or butterflies/ moths! What morbid thoughts on an early Sunday morning.

We went for the hotel bfast and saw a friend in Port Dickson! What kind of chance is that?!

There was a petting zoo and was opened to public at 10am to 11am. As we were too early, we headed to the beach to waddle in the shallow water. It isn't the cleanest beach and the water was brownish. We ended up torturing some poor hermit crab instead. Our kids were super scare of hermit crabs actually. They tiptoed on the beach when they noticed little holes, indicating that some hermit crabs probably made their home there. Only Daddy Lim was braved enough.

 We left the beach not only it was time to go to the petting zoo but Daddy Lim got bitten by this duno what super tiny creature on his ankle.

He said that it was like an ant bite. It didn't itch or swell thereafter. Lil Shauna then insisted that the same "sea animal" bit her yday. That was freakish enough to send us all running out of the sea. Lol.

The kids (including the big kid) had fun feeding and petting the little animals.

We headed back to the room for a little rest. On the way back, we saw a green snake! Wah lau, Port Dickson is too rustic for city dwellers like us lah.

In the afternoon, we had a swim and also went to the kids club for some activities to entertain the kids. The kids club was super mini and there werent much to do. The kids were super to self entertain. The more interesting activities were chargeable.

We went back to our room and took a little walk. Whilst doing so, we saw our neighbour fishing from the comfort of his balcony and the uncle caught a crab! I was too slow to fish out my camera for the magic moment and only caught this. He was wrestling the crab but looked more like cleaning the floor. Lol. Sorry ah uncle.

We hid in the room until dinner. I seriously couldn't remember what I had booked but our package actually came with a free dinner. So we had a free Chinese reunion dinner that didn't look too bad. However, the service was super slow and the kids were restless and so it wasn't too enjoyable. Still, happy reunion dinner! I was initially worried that we would end up with a pathetic dinner. Hehe.

The rest of the night was spent lazing around in the room and watching TV. Seriously, nobody minds.

Mummy Lim

Port Dickson Day 1

Daddy Lim would normally work during CNY if we are to remain in Singapore. Last year,  we went to BKK. This year, CNY falls on Monday and Tuesday and my traveling radar automatically goes in search of a weekend getaway!

We then decided to stay in Singapore bcos ah yee is coming home and she wanted us to spend CNY together. 2 weeks before CNY, ah yee said that she couldn't come home bcos she had issues with her visa. By then, air tickets were all freaking expensive. We eventually decided to drive to Port Dickson and stuck to the holidays even when ah yee announced that she is coming back bcos her visa problems were resolved. Holiday!

We had planned to drive in to Malaysia via the 2nd link at 4.30am. We were slightly late and set off at 4.45am. See how excited the kids were even at such unearthly time. They had been asking for a long time to bring their own luggage for trips. 

We were hoping that there would be no jam. People who wanted to go Malaysia would have done so on Friday night isn't it? Moreover, we were that early. Unfortunately, many Singaporeans thought the same way as us and we saw a long tail of lights way before the Singapore custom. 

The traffic was a snail crawl. We were in the jam for 1.5hr. Then, we were caught in the Malaysia custom jam for another 1.5hr. Zzzzzz. Luckily nobody needed the toilet urgently. The kids were restless by the time we finally made it through the Malaysia custom. They appeared to have the biggest shock of their lives when we told them that we were finally going to start our 3 hrs drive to Port Dickson. We stopped at the very 1st rest point to stretch the legs. The rest point was very crowded with many others who were also stuck in the custom and seeking the same relieve. No joke. 

We went back to the car and continued on our way before getting stuck in another expressway jam. There was some traffic accident and the 2 lanes expressway become 3 lanes together with the road shoulder but provided little relief. We made a 2nd pit stop for toilets before our journey to Port Dickson. There was no need for lunch bcos of all the snacking in the car. Daddy Lim and I were eating so much in the car to stay awake.  He needed to drive and I wanted to keep him company.  Lil Isaac had a good 2 hr nap and allowed us some peace in the car. Lil Shauna though restless, kept herself entertained. 

We were so glad to finally get off the expressway. The GPS made us travelled another 45 mins on narrow roads. Daddy Lim happily tetona-ed at 90km/hr. At times, he had to slow down bcos there were cows! Cows lined the 2 sides of the roads and we saw monkeys too! 

I am quite sure the GPS brought us the long way bcos it took forever to reach Avillion. We even passed by the same market that we visited more than 5 years back. Lil Shauna was less than 3 then. We started talking about the old times, which Lil Shauna totally had no recollections. Such fond memories.

We finally arrived at Avillion after like 8 freaking hours! Half of the time was caught in some jams. At least the room was ready for check in. We booked a water chalet. The room was huge with 2 twin beds and a double day bed by the window and a balcony. The room sits on the sea and we can see the shallow sea during high tide.

The bathroom was also huge and had a outdoorsy resort feel. Bathtub!

Overall, the hotel is a little old and there were plenty of nature (read: mosquitoes and bugs). I was super generous on the insect repellent. We also found a dead insect underneath one of the beds. We left it there for the entire stay. Hi, neighbour. Haha.

After settling in, we headed to the restaurant for our 1st proper meal of the day. It was right beside the pool.

I brought the kids out to the beach after lunch while Daddy Lim took a cat nap. He was exhausted after the horrible jam and long drive.

We didn't stay very long at the beach though.  I was worried about sand flies while Lil Shauna insisted that some "sea animal" bit her her she was waddling in the shallow water. She didnt exactly see what it was. The shallow shore stretches like forever in the low tide.

We headed to the children pool instead. There was a mini slide and the kids had loads of fun going down the slides 200x. The kids couldn't swim in the proper pool though bcos I wasnt in my swimming gear and I couldn't tell how deep the pool was. Nevertheless, nobody complain.

Back in the room, the kids dipped in the bathtub while I stole a cat nap. I was dead tired too. Lil Shauna was the only one going strong. We headed to the market to buy extra mineral water but chose not to buy and eat from the street stalls eventually.  The food looked too exotic for the kids and a tummy ache was the last thing that we needed. Dinner was instead yummy KFC. The kids had worked up a good appetite by then.

Lil Shauna almost collapsed after dinner and used her last ounce of energy to walk back to the room. Bedtime was 8pm for her while the rest of us watched TV. We didn't sleep too late too. Tired lah. Good night. 

Mummy Lim